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RUSH: Jeff Lord has a great piece in the American Spectator about this today, the technique that the Democrats and Obama are using. You go from one distraction to the next, all for the express purpose of keeping attention off of yourself and your horrible, failing record. There is apparently a political term for this that has its origins back in the days of Spiro Agnew. I will not repeat the term that is used to describe... but Jeff does in his piece. Admittedly saying that he could encounter some trouble because it involves what some people would consider an ethnic slur, but it's not the point of it. It's just what the strategy of the move is called.

RUSH: Michael Ramirez, who's one of the greatest editorial cartoonists of our age, has a great cartoon. It's a blackboard, a green blackboard, and on the green blackboard is Obama's record. Obama is on a ladder plastering individual pieces of paper on the blackboard so you can't see Obama's record. It's filled with "Romney, Cayman Islands," "Ann Romney's horse," all those things that they're using to try to focus people on Romney and his problems rather than focus on Obama and his destruction and his failed policies. That's what they're trying to do, and it's not working. So now they come out with this thing on Friday in Roanoke, and they're letting it stand. They're letting it stand.

Maybe I'm missing something. But I'm thinking, if you let it stand, okay, either you're calculating, "Yeah, I think I can win. I think there's a coalition of people that I could put together that will outnumber my opposition that agrees with me on this." Or you think, "Okay, let's just let this play out and die, because if I go out, try to walk it back, it's just gonna breathe new life into it. I'm gonna look like an idiot, people laugh at me." That could be what they're doing. But it isn't going away, because it's hit people where they live. This is not people reacting to something I've said about Obama or Romney has said about Obama or anybody else. This is people reacting to what Obama said about himself. This is people reacting to Obama revealing who he really is.

RUSH: I mentioned this piece from the Chicago Tribune. It's by a man by the name of John Kass. It's entitled: "Who Else, Mr. President? -- When President Barack Obama hauled off and slapped American small business owners in the mouth the other day, I wanted to dream of my father. But I didn’t have to close my eyes to see my dad. I could do it with my eyes open. All I had to do was think of the driveway of our home, and my dad’s car gone before dawn, that old white Chrysler with a push-button transmission. It always started, but there was a hole in the floor and his feet got wet in the rain. So he patched it with concrete mix and kept on driving it to the little supermarket he ran with my Uncle George.

"He’d return home long after dark, physically and mentally exhausted, take a plate of food, talk with us for a few minutes, then flop in that big chair in front of the TV. Even before his cigarette was out, he’d begin to snore. The next day he’d wake up and do it again. Day after day, decade after decade. Weekdays and weekends, no vacations, no time to see our games, no money for extras, not even for McDonald’s. My dad and Uncle George, and my mom and my late Aunt Mary, killing themselves in their small supermarket on the South Side of Chicago.

"There was no federal bailout money for us. No Republican corporate welfare. No Democratic handouts. No bipartisan lobbyists working the angles. No Tony Rezkos. No offshore accounts. No Obama bucks. Just two immigrant brothers and their families risking everything, balancing on the economic high wire, building a business in America. They sacrificed, paid their bills, counted pennies to pay rent and purchase health care and food and not much else. And for their troubles they were muscled by the politicos, by the city inspectors and the chiselers and the weasels, all those smiling extortionists who held the government hammer over all of our heads. I thought about this after I heard what Obama told a campaign crowd the other day, speaking about business owners and why they were successful. 'You didn’t get there on your own,' Obama said."

He goes through all of what Obama said in Roanoke.

"If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that? Somebody else made that happen? Somebody else, Mr. President? Who, exactly? Government? One of my earliest memories as a boy at the store was that of the government men coming from City Hall. One was tall and beefy. The other was wiry. They wanted steaks. We didn’t eat red steaks at home or yellow bananas. We took home the brown bananas and the brown steaks because we couldn’t sell them. But the government men liked the big, red steaks, the fat rib-eyes two to a shrink-wrapped package. You could put 20 or so in a shopping bag. 'Thanks, Greek,' they’d say."

They'd come in, want free steaks. The government men.

"That was government. We didn’t go to movies or out to restaurants. Everything went into the business. Uncle George and Dad never bought what they could not afford. The store employed people, and the workers fed their families and educated their children and put them through college. They were good people, all of them. We worked together and worked hard, but none worked harder than the bosses. It’s the same story with so many other businesses in America, immigrants and native-born. The entrepreneurs risk everything, their homes, their children’s college funds, their hearts, all for a chance at the dream: independence, and a small business of their own."

Most often they fail and they fall to the ground without a government parachute. But some get up and start again.

"When I was grown and gone from home, my parents finally managed to save a little money. After all those years of hard work and denying themselves things, they had enough to buy a place in Florida. Dad died only a few years later. You wouldn’t call them rich. But Obama might. Obama’s changed. Gone is that young knight drawing the sword from the stone, selling Hopium to the adoring media, preaching an end to the broken politics of the past. These days, he wears a new persona: the multimillionaire with the Chicago clout, playing the class warrior, fighting for that second term. And he offers an American dream much different from my father’s. Open your eyes and you can see it, too. He stands there at the front of the mob, in his shirt sleeves, swinging that government hammer, exhorting the crowd to use its votes and take what it wants." John Kass in the Chicago Tribune.

I don't know if he voted for Obama or not, but I know he probably won't this year. He's got that mob right. It's exactly what Obama's doing. Obama exhorting the crowd in Roanoke to use its votes to take what it wants. Obama's out there telling them, (imitating Obama) "Those people own businesses, those people that are successful, they're no better than you. They're no smarter than you. You made it possible for them to be successful. You built the roads. You built the bridges, and you reelect me and I'll get it back for you." That's what he's telling them. That's what he's telling them. Elect me and I'll get it back for you. That's why he's not trying to walk it back. All right, Mr. Kass, it's a great column you wrote in the Chicago Tribune.

RUSH: There's a fascinating story. He's got a nominee to head up the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a woman by the name of Erica Groshen. She is a committed... I don't know how to describe this. I'm wont to use the word. Let's just say that she is a huge leftist, huge socialist. And there's opposition to her because of this. She is Obama. Everybody says, "Gee, how do these wackos like Van Jones, how did they get past Obama?" They are Obama. He picks them. He knows who they are before he runs for office. They're a crowd, folks, they're a clique. The Daily Caller has an interesting story about Erica Groshen.

"A forthcoming report from the conservative organization Americans for Limited Government (ALG) details how President Barack Obama’s nominee to head the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) sent her children to a politically left-wing Jewish summer camp with Communist roots. Obama nominated Erica Groshen to be the BLS commissioner in February, but this new report -- obtained by The Daily Caller and set to be released on Thursday -- reveals for the first time publicly that she sent her children to Camp Kinderland. The ALG report reveals how 'Groshen and her husband are listed in the Kinderland Directory 2011-2012, which indicates that they sent children to the camp during the 1990s and 2000s. Camp Kinderland was founded in 1923 as a place for the children of radical Jewish activists,' the report continues. According to New York University, some of the camp’s founders were 'activists in the Communist Party,' and all 'were associated with the left wing of the Workermen’s (sic) Circle.'"

RUSH: There's also a guy out now, John Drew, I forget where this is. I've got somewhere in the Stack. Apparently this guy dated one of the composite women in Obama's book. The woman named Regina, this guy dated her for two years. And according to this guy, Regina was not black. She wasn't from the south side of Chicago. She was white. They were all left-wing radicals. They spent their summers in San Francisco. Obama, at Occidental College, was a Marxist. This is this guy's writing. We finally found a friend of Obama's from back then. Now, this is not gonna get a wide berth, but it's out there. I don't care about the labels, communist this, we don't even need 'em. Obama is now telling us who he is. And I must admit, there's a bit of rejoicing going on with me, El Rushbo.

This, my friends, is something that I've been confident in knowing since Obama was a senator. It's not hard. Like I said, you don't even need a high school diploma. All you have to do is understand who modern liberals are and what they are, what they want to do. After that it's easy. The hardest part is admitting that there are people like that amongst us in positions of power with so many friends. But it ought not be. The more people that could come to grips with that, the farther along we would be.

RUSH: The Mexican government, ladies and gentlemen, has been working with the United States Department of Agriculture, the Mexican government working with the Obama regime to increase participation in the food stamp program. That's why I read it slowly. You heard me. "The USDA has an agreement with Mexico to promote American food assistance programs, including food stamps, among Mexican Americans, Mexican nationals and migrant communities in America. 'USDA and the government of Mexico have entered into a partnership to help educate eligible Mexican nationals living in the United States about available nutrition assistance,' the USDA explains in a brief paragraph on their 'Reaching Low-Income Hispanics With Nutrition Assistance' web page."

There is a website called Reaching Low-Income Hispanics With Nutrition Assistance. "Mexico will help disseminate this information through its embassy and network of approximately 50 consular offices." So the deal is that Mexico is going to help the USDA advertise the food stamp program to low-income Hispanics who need nutrition assistance. Now, ladies and gentlemen, isn't it so that the moral and the really compassionate thing would be to educate and inspire people to get to a level where they no longer need this? That's what we conservatives believe in. We would rather count or define compassion by counting the number of people who no longer need food stamps because they have become self-reliant.

Now, what's Obama doing here? Obama is advertising now in Mexico for a permanent underclass. (interruption) A question from the official program observer. Yes, what's the question? Why are we profiling? Because it has been determined that Mexicans will be the new permanent underclass for the Democrat Party. They're made to order. By definition, they arrive poor. We want to keep them that way. How do you keep people poor? Well, you keep them poor by making sure they can't provide for themselves. That's how you prolong poverty. (interruption) You can profile them for food stamps. Well, I don't know if you're profiling them. You say targeting. We're offering a benefit. Profile has a negative connotation to it.

But this, it's almost like we're singling them out for the benefit. That's what they are to believe. But you prolong poverty by ensuring that people cannot provide for themselves. That's what Obama's doing here. More and more Americans are going to be forced to admit who they elected. More and more Americans are going to be forced to understand what this man's plans for the country are. He is not interested in getting people off the welfare rolls. Don't forget, this is the guy who last week gutted the work requirements in welfare reform. Now, work is how you get out of poverty, folks. Work is step one to getting out of poverty, and Obama gutted the work requirements for welfare.

Now he's extending food stamps to a Mexican community in this country and using the Mexican government to help advertise. So you turn on television down in Mexico and you probably hear, "If you're planning on going to the United States, once you get there here's how you get food stamps." At the end of the commercial it should say (impression), "I'm Barack Obama, on behalf of the USDA, and I wrote and approved this message." So the message is: Obama wants you! If you come, here's your food stamps.

"The partnership -- which was signed by former USDA Secretary Ann M. Veneman and Mexican Secretary of Foreign Affairs Luis Ernesto Derbez Bautista in 2004 -- sees to it that the Mexican Embassy and Mexican consulates in America provide USDA nutrition assistance program information to Mexican-Americans... The goal, for USDA, is to get rid of what they see as enrollment obstacles and increase access among potentially eligible populations by working with arms of the Mexican government in America. Benefits are not guaranteed or provided under the program -- the purpose is outreach and education."

The "outreach and education" is: Learn how to qualify. "Some of the materials the USDA encourages the Mexican government to use to educate and promote the benefit programs are available free online for order and download. A partial list of materials include English and Spanish brochures titled 'Five Easy Steps To SNAP Benefits,' 'How To Get Food Help -- A Consumer’s Guide to FNCS Programs,' 'Ending Hunger, Improving Nutrition, Combating Obesity,' and posters with slogans like 'Food Stamps Make America Stronger.'"

That's right.

There are posters that are gonna be out there, and they say, "Food Stamps Make America Stronger."

"When asked for details and to elaborate on the program, USDA stressed it was established in 2004 and not meant for illegal[s]..." It's meant for people who are already here and who are starving. "'The partnership with the Mexican embassy was established in 2004,' a USDA spokesman wrote The Daily Caller in an e-mail. 'USDA does not perform outreach to immigrants that are undocumented, and therefore not eligible for [food stamps].' Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions, who has been pushing for reform of SNAP, sent a letter to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack on Wednesday demanding more answers and documents pertaining to the partnership."

RUSH: Did you see the story out of Canada from Slate.com? "Economic times here in America are pretty tough, but things aren’t so shabby for our neighbors to the north. Over the past five years, the net worth of the average Canadian has crept up, overtaking the average American’s wealth for the first time. These days, Canadian households are about $40,000 richer than American ones. The figures from Environics Analytics WealthScapes, first published in Toronto’s Globe and Mail last month, place the net value of the typical Canadian household at $363,202 versus $319,970 below the border. And, writer Michael Adams points out, 'these are not 60-cent-dollars, but Canadian dollars more or less at par with the US greenback.' Not only are Canadians richer, Bloomberg View columnist Stephen Marche reported on Sunday, they're also more likely to have a job."

You know, $40,000, that's a big differential. The average Canadian household is $40,000 wealthier than an American household? First time in history.